Thursday, March 31, 2011

Jeremy asked to play my Wood Elves this week to test out his Warriors of Chaos army for the up and coming OFCC tournament this summer. I agreed and decided to bring my Great Hunt despite the nagging thoughts that I probably should have postponed for another week.

Jeremy's army is pretty solid. He has 2 blocks of Chaos Warriors, 2 blocks of Marauders, 2 units of Chaos Knights, a BSB and a level 4 Sorcerer of Tzeentch. Now immediately you think - what is my target priority?

The mission was Battle Mission no. 3 - Battle for the Pass. I had decided to set up a themed board with a chapel destroyed by war surrounded by forests. Foolish idea.

Rule no.1 - Setting up a themed board and then rolling a mission will only come back to bite you in the ass.

Here is a picture of our deployment. As you can see I must have been smoking some good crack to set up this badly. Looking at these images I really don't understand what was going through my head. A Wood Elf army should never attempt to split up and allow themselves to be isolated. As you can also see Jeremy set up very well. His units prevented a flank charge and he put a unit of Knights out to the side to tempt me to concentrate on that as opposed to the main section of his army.

Rule no.2 - Deploying badly only helps your opponent, especially when they are Warriors of Chaos cause we all know they don't need any help.

Terrible deployment - still saddened by this.

Now when you are playing Wood Elves you have to obey three simple maxims in order to be successful.
A. Never diminish your archery capabilities by poor deployment or obstacles blocking line of sight.
B. Never put yourself in a situation where you can get charged unless you plan on it.
C. Never attempt to solo charge any unit - Wood elves need to focus fire a single unit one at a time.

What did John do this game?
I will show you the image of the top of the second turn and you can see exactly what he did badly.

As you can see my Glade Guard were split up, my Waywatchers were in the center of the battlefield in range to be charged by 3 units. My Great Eagles were in pretty good position but my Dryads were poorly placed. The Treekin which should have been supporting the Wild Riders - no check that my Wild Riders that should have been supporting my Treekin and Dryads charged his Knights and ended up not wiping them out. Just all in all terrible, terrible playing.

The magic defense was also ridiculous. I should have allowed that stupid anti-leadership spell Pandemonium to go off every turn and just dispelled it on my magic phase instead of wasting dice on it during his. This poor dispelling allowed him to summon his Exalted heroes which made a huge difference. Just generally poor decisions made all around.

Check that - poor decisions made by me. Jeremy made all the right ones.

To summarize:
1. Treekin died because they sacked out in close combat with the Chaos Knights and got run down.
2. Wild Riders died because they failed to kill the other Chaos Knights and resulted in getting combo charged by 2 units.
3. Waywatchers died because they were charged by Marauders.
4. Dryads died because they got overrun into by the Wild Rider battle.

I just threw in the towel after that - my dice decided to go on strike because they got sick of trying to mitigate poor playing.

Winner: Jeremy's Warriors of Chaos.

Things to do next time.

1. Proper deployment - In the three games I've deployed poorly in 8th edition, I've been massacred. You would think I would keep this in mind when playing.

Note to self: Don't deploy like a tard. - check.

2. Roleplaying rule no.1 - Never split up the party. This works in wargaming. Never split up your units. No good can come of this. You can't depend on rolling hot to always work for you. I don't know why I've been attempting to solo charge units lately. Foolish.

4. Pay the hell attention. Allowing poor dice rolls and a few bad decisions to distract you and make you forget the entire point of the game - to have fun, is silly. Yes, sometimes you roll poorly. It's a dice game, you'll be ok. You made some mistakes? Learn from them, don't belabor them over and over.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

I'm a big fan of Games Workshop's models. I think they do a really good job, especially on their newer releases. However I saw this model at http://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/ and had to buy it to replace my existing Great Eagles in my Wood Elf army. I really, really like the look of this eagle model and I wish I had seen it before obtaining the alternate models I already have for my Great Eagles.
This is a limited edition run so I ordered 2.

I'll be assembling and painting these two (minus rider of course) very soon and you'll definitely see some blog updates of their progress. Next update I'll post my WIP Doombull and Minotaurs in my Beastman army.

If you want to see more images of this model go to this link here.
There is another model I will be getting very soon as well to use for my Spellweaver in 3000 point games which is located here.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Today I had the pleasure of seeing my army in action against...my own army. A friend of mine, Reuben, was interested in getting an 8th edition game but his army wasn't ready for playing. Reuben, a staunch veteran of wargaming in general, had only played a single 500 point battle of 8th edition and before that had not touched Warhammer Fantasy for many years. So I decided to let him play my newly assembled and battle tested Beastman army against my own crafty Wood Elves. While it was a learning game, it was an absolute total blast because it really didn't feel like one after turn 2. The Beastmen who normally fold to a strong ranged army did an extremely impressive job of beating the ever living hell out of my Wood Elves.

Since it was Reuben's second game of 8th we decided to play a standard line em up and knock em down match. His army (my army hehe) had strong emphasis on close combat (I should know it was my list keke) and my Wood Elves had a very strong hit and move methodology to them. The two armies could not have been more mismatched.

I won't go into play by play for this battle since I didn't bring a camera but I will say that Reuben is an exceptional player. It's pretty hard to play well in a new game system with an army that you are unfamiliar with. It's even more difficult to play with an army that your opponent assembled and crafted the list. In the first few turns it looked like a total route of the Beastmen but Reuben hung in there and managed to reduce my 2000 point army down to 490 points. That was just mind boggling, Six turns and for a while I was afraid that I was going to get my ass kicked with my own army - and honestly I almost did!

Needless to say, after playing against my own Beastmen with my Wood Elves and seeing how my list stood up against my primary army was very gratifying. The Doombull General managed to wipe out 2 units all by himself including the Wood elf General.

Reuben is now charged with completing his Warriors of Chaos army and throwing down again against me for a killer rematch. The gauntlet hath been thrown!

Also on a side note: I'm super pleased with how well the Beastman army list did. I will continue to use that composition against my friends. This was a rather effective way of testing out a list without having to play it!

There will definitely be more battle reports with images and battle maps to come in the future. I fully intend on using Battle Chronicler for the next few games to showcase the mobility and effectiveness of both of these lists. Thanks for reading!

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Ah the Great Eagle. Very few models in the wood elf army could be considered "cheap" and yet be totally worth their points ten times over in a game.

The Great Eagle is an extremely viable Rare selection for the Wood Elf army in 8th edition. You can easily take 2 in most games and still have points left over for alternate rare selections. The Great Eagle being only 50 points provides the Wood Elf army with several options:
1. War Machine Hunters - they are 3 wound fliers that can generally take out most annoying warmachines that plague Wood Elf lines.
2. March Blockers - their ability to soar over your opponent's line and force leadership tests to march actually pays off and allows you to better position the rest of your army.
3. Mage Hunters - most lone Wizards should fear the Great Eagle
4. Rear/Flank Chargers - the Great Eagle is just strong enough to provide you with an excellent boost to your combat res. by giving you a +2 rear charge bonus or a +1 flank charge.

Anatomy of the Great Eagle -
1. Weapon Skill 5 - Against most armies these guys hit on a 3.
2. Strength and Tough 4: -1 to armor saves and T4 is nothing to sneeze at.
3. 3 Wounds - not bad for a 50 point model.
4. 2 Attacks + Stomp - again this is not a bad combat boost to a multi-charge - If you are lucky you can deal 3 wounds +2 combat res for a rear charge.
5. Leadership 8 - grats on having a Monstrous Beast with higher leadership than 80% of the armies in the game.

How I use the Great Eagles in my lists:

I field 2 Great Eagles in my 2000 point list. I use them to both hunt Warmachines and also to provide some protection/augment my Wild Riders. It is not uncommon to see my Great Eagles rear charge a unit that my Wild Riders just engaged. The 20" flight they have also allows me to redirect the entire flow of the battlefield by placing 2 units on my opponents flank and now creating a nagging worry that they have to think about during the game. I rarely solo charge a unit unless it's a cannon or a spellcaster with my Great Eagles. Their use is primarily to provide me with mobility and options during a game. Great Eagles also provide excellent bodyguard capabilities for a Waywatcher unit or a unit of Glade Guard Scouts.

I fully encourage Wood Elf players to take Great Eagles in 8th edition. Where most armies in 8th edition have adopted the "bigger is better" approach to fielding units, MSU is still an option for Wood Elves but it's an option that you have to use with near surgical precision. Don't make the mistake I did with my Great Eagles in my first few games and use them as a hammer to try to break up enemies blocks. That was foolish, they are not flying Doombulls. I recommend using one or two in your games and try using them as combat support units rather than flying warmachines (that is unless your opponent has warmachines then by all means charge the hell out of those and rid your opponent of that annoying option).